This report is a guide to all customer-facing financing products—products offered by a lender directly to a borrower—used to pay for energy efficiency. Intended for state and local governments that are deciding whether to start a new program, tune up and existing program, or create a Green Bank, it provides information on the full range of financing product options for target participants, the tradeoffs of various products, and potential advantages and disadvantages for different types of customers.

This report examines participation of low and moderate income borrowers (LMI) in the first WHEEL portfolio. This is the first report in a multiyear project by EPC on Residential Energy Finance and the LMI Market that will take a close look at the market for residential energy efficiency and renewable energy loans to in order to increase the number and rate of the retrofits they facilitate.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on opportunities and challenges in the Southeast and holistic, whole house approaches for working in hot and humid climates.

Improving energy efficiency can make energy more affordable, transform unhealthy buildings into comfortable homes, and create thousands of jobs. While there are opportunities across the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, some of the greatest need and most profound gains can be made in low- and moderate-income housing. This report outlines why focusing on energy efficiency programs to serve North Carolinians of modest means can return benefits to everyone across the state, and discusses many of the steps that can be taken to increase the adoption of energy efficiency in North Carolina.

This Guide is designed to help state and local policymakers to take full advantage of new policy developments by providing them with a comprehensive set of tools to support launching or accelerating residential energy efficiency programs. The Guide focuses on four categories of policies that have proven particularly effective in providing a framework within which residential energy efficiency programs can thrive: incentives and financing, making the value of energy efficiency visible in the real estate market, data access and standardization, and supporting utility system procurement of energy efficiency.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how a residential energy efficiency program can work with, for or as utilities.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the advantages and challenges of data tracking systems.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on evaluating and demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of energy upgrades to programs.

SEEA created this document to inform the planning, design and delivery of early-stage energy efficiency programs in the Southeast. This document captures general concepts essential to the successful development and implementation of robust program portfolios, as well as lessons learned from prior experience on the regional and national levels.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how programs use behavior change strategies to reduce energy use.

This presentation provides an overview of New Jersey Clean Energy's approach to contractor engagement, including contractor participation requirements, procedures for quality assurance and quality control, production incentives, training procedures, and an online contractor portal.

This report presents the underlying barriers and drivers of successful efficiency programs, deliberates upon what financing roles are most appropriate for SEEA involvement going forward, and quantifies the opportunity for energy efficiency financing in the Southeast going forward.

This report presents the impact evaluation conducted of the 13 programs in the Southeast Consortium Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP).

This report presents the phase 1 process evaluation conducted of the 13 programs in the Southeast Consortium Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP).

This report presents the phase 2 process evaluation conducted of the 13 programs in the Southeast Consortium Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP).

This report provides an independent analysis of the job creation impact of DOE's investment in energy efficiency programs, from 2010 to 2013. The analysis calculates the job creation results that would have occurred in the Southeast, based on the prevailing economic conditions from 2010 to 2013, had DOE invested in sectors other than energy efficiency.

This report demonstrates the results achieved to date by the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance. It highlights the experiences of Consortium programs, their successes driving further investments in energy efficiency improvements, and the challenges that hindered their progress. It also details the infrastructure, resources, and opportunities that support the deployment of energy efficiency programming, and the approaches that the Consortium has found best suited to the region.

This report provides an independent analysis of the economic performance of SEEA's 13-city, U.S. Department of Energy-funded energy efficiency upgrade consortium from 2010 to 2013. It estimates the net impacts of SEEA's energy efficiency programs on the economy of the southeast region as a whole, and on the economies of the states with participating programs.

Philadelphia EnergyWorks helped sustain future programs by sharing marketing insights and program data with a local utility partner.

This peer exchange call summary focused on loan product structure and using market research to identify candidates for upgrades of occupied commercial buildings.

The objective of this document is to help state and local governments understand the role of program administrators (PAs) and assist them in developing successful partnerships with utility and other energy efficiency PAs. The majority of this paper presents information on partnering and leveraging current energy efficiency activities. However, it also includes information for governments in areas without active PAs, as well as an appendix with a case study describing how state and local governments can fill gaps and administer programs in the absence of a PA.

This report explores the approaches and research needs identified in the Building Retrofit Industry and Market (BRIM) Initiative through in-depth discussion with residential energy upgrade experts including a discussion of Marketing & Outreach and the program/contractor interface.

This interim evaluation report examines the design, delivery, and market effects of each of the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance's (SEEA) thirteen sub-grantee programs and identifies opportunities to increase each program's success, and quantifies and verifies the energy savings achieved through the programs' funded home energy improvements and the cost-effectiveness of those savings.

Presentation describing AFC First's (a lender's) aggressive underwriting and smart product delivery as part of the Keystone HELP program.

This publication summarizes some of the incentives offered by Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.

This peer exchange call summary focused on sales training assistance programs for contractors.

Reviews and summarize energy efficiency financing models and strategies. Models are analyzed according to funding sources, program structures, limits to scale, repayment vehicles, and project risks. Strategies consider applicable building sectors, models, levels of establishment, growth potential, advantages, and disadvantages.

This presentation describes the brand, messaging strategy, and campaign tactics used by Philadelphia EnergyWorks to reach its target audience.

EnergyWorks' phased marketing campaign appeals to Philadelphia homeowners based on the current weather conditions.

A list of tips from Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge for working with utilities to access energy usage data.

This practitioner-focused Toolkit for Residential Energy Efficiency Upgrade Programs was created by Green For All to assist new, established, and future energy efficiency programs launch and scale initiatives that can deliver the full promise of the green economy. It is intended as a practical resource that offers examples, tools, and templates that a program manager can deploy to implement a variety of aspects of their program including best practice briefs and summary documents, RFPs, contracts, and other program design and implementation templates that communities nationwide have used to create their own efficiency programs.

In this video interview segment, Liz Robinson with EnergyWorks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, talks about the faith-based partnerships EnergyWorks developed to help promote the program.

This presentation describes Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge program and lessons learned on community engagement as a driver of demand.

This presentation describes the New Jersey Clean Energy program and lessons learned on community engagement as a driver of demand.

This video describes the partnerships that EnergyWorks in Philadelphia established to offer classroom, lab, and in-field training to technicians to help them enter the home performance market.

This peer exchange call summary focused on effective program evaluation and incorporating changes into programs based off evaluation insight.

This fact sheet provides promising approaches for Better Buildings programs seeking to accelerate workforce development to support building energy upgrades. These approaches are organized by estimated level of effort and include rough estimates of cost ranges for implementation.

Presentation on the key programmatic elements of financing initiatives.

This policy brief describes the energy efficiency financing options programs can use to help financial institutions make energy upgrades affordable and accessible to homeowners.

Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge's perspective on their partnership with Northeast Utilities.

Presentation that focuses on grantee program-utility partnership models.

This peer exchange call summary focused on activities to streamline service delivery to customers.

Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge uses dashboards that display key project data for administrators and contractors to monitor progress over time. The program has evaluated performance at different steps in the process and identified strategies to improve performance where needed, such as sales training for contractors, energy advisors, monthly contractor scorecards, and multiple customer "touches." These improvements increased the close rate from 26 to 60 percent in one year.

This video provides an overview of training a local workforce to meet program needs, including meeting the needs of local contractors for new hires.

This presentation includes the brands, website addresses, and images for most of the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.

This U.S. Environmental Protection Agency resource is intended to help state and local governments design finance programs for their jurisdiction. It describes financing program options, key components of these programs, and factors to consider as they make decisions about getting started or updating their programs.

This presentation shares how the Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge collected and evaluated data and used the results to improve its program.

Authorization form to obtain household energy information.

This template, used by Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge, standardizes volunteer data collection efforts at events.

Short survey for Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge workshop participants. The workshop allowed the program to share its energy efficiency offerings with homeowners.

Experimental design is often used to increase certainty about the actual impacts of a program and what strategies are worth repeating going forward. This webcast reviewed some experimental design techniques and gave examples of how they might fit into your programs.

This webcast explores how faith-based organizations and their partners have used energy efficiency as an organizing motivator to upgrade the institutional building and then members' homes.

Outlines Philadelphia's EnergyWorks program's use of low-interest loans to incentivize homeowners by tying the interest rate to the number of energy efficiency measures incorporated into the home.

This publication outlines capital leveraging models and examples from across the country in which public funds were used to influence energy loan program capital.

The Connecticut Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge developed this form for authorization to obtain household energy information.

This paper, which is based on detailed case studies of nine existing state and local programs, presents recommendations for energy upgrade programs to facilitate industry growth and support contractor business models.

This webcast covers information about designing effective incentives to drive residential retrofit program participation.

This guide provides an assessment of various approaches to Marketing & Outreach for home energy efficiency improvements.

This market assessment evaluates lending options for funding energy efficiency upgrades in North Carolina.

Table showing challenges, needs, strategies, and resources related to financing.

This presentation outlines the steps Connecticut's Neighbor to Neighbor Energy Challenge program took to obtain and sort useful feedback from surveys and volunteer observations.

This webcast highlights programs that actively engage the contractor community in program design and implementation. Several contractors share their views on best practices for Marketing & Outreach.

This webcast presents lessons learned in marketing, communication, and outreach, including lessons related to marketing plans.

This webcast presents Pennsylvania's Keystone HELP program as a case study for successful public/private partnerships for consumer energy efficiency financing.

This request for proposal from the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance is for branding and communications support.

This is a sample request for proposals (RFP) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for public information and marketing support.

This brief focuses on loan programs in 30 states that are currently providing low- to no-interest loans to finance energy efficiency improvements--from energy-efficient windows to replacement HVAC systems--in the residential, business, and public sectors.